


Tardigrade

by Darkdragonforge



Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: Gen, One Shot, Short One Shot, Snippets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-21
Updated: 2019-09-21
Packaged: 2020-10-25 04:29:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20718119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darkdragonforge/pseuds/Darkdragonforge
Summary: A quick snippet I wrote because of a song by Cosmo Sheldrake. Taylor triggers with an adaptive breaker state that counters threats to her “survival”





	Tardigrade

Sophia hadn’t made it five steps away from the locker before she had smelled it.

No, it wasn’t the biohazard that was in Hebert’s locker, though the smell definitely did emanate from the locker.

_ Burning _ . Sophia realized. That was the smell of something burning, specifically hair. The locker rattled and the smell got closer. 

_ What the fuck? _

The locker detonated, flinging shards of metal through the hallway. Sophia heard the prey around her screaming in pain and fear.

Fucking weaklings. Just like Hebert. 

A figure stood in the twisted remains of the locker. Made of a black fog it stood tall, electricity crackling as it lept from it to the metal around it.

It stood still for a long moment, it’s vague silhouette seeming to stare at her. Hebert triggered, and from a fucking locker. Christ, she really was pathetic.

Sophia broke into a combat stance. In the chaos, her change to her breaker form wouldn’t be noticed, and while it would reveal that Shadow Stalker went to Winslow, that wouldn’t matter, seeing as Winslow was the most populated school in the district. 

Sophia stepped back, keeping her eyes trained on Hebert. Hebert seemed to do the same, though she stood unmoving. Sirens wailed in the distance, sirens that Sophia could only assume were from the PRT, seeing as a few of the prey still standing where white-knuckling cellphones.

Hebert seemed to finally notice the chaos, their shadowy body rippling as they moved, electricity veiling her in pale blue light. The crowd scrambled over themselves to move out of the way as she stumbled towards the door, losing more and more shadow as she did, the electricity leaving with it.

Sophia charged forward as a column of smoke, slamming into Hebert in a tackle. A few seconds after she did Hebert’s fog came back. 

_ Fuck, fuck, FUCK, FUCK _

Sophia rushed out of her breaker state, spasming and twitching as she did. Before everything went black she heard the distinctive whirring of Armsmaster’s motorcycle. 

  
  


* * *

Colin was wary. Dozens of calls from Winslow had slammed into the PRT’s phone line all at once, all saying that a cape just blew up a hallway. Colin guessed the said cape was the person standing in front of Winslow, the one crackling with electricity, somebody spasming at their feet.

Colin couldn’t recall any parahuman in Brockton as having electrokinesis, let alone one that seemed to manifest as a stormcloud. This implied to him that the cape was either from out of town, or more likely, had just triggered.

Beside him stood Dauntless and Velocity. All three were ordered to not engage in case of it provoking violent action. 

One of the higher-ranking PRT officers barked orders at the unknown parhuman, the standard fair of an order to deactivate their power and peacefully surrender. Colin noticed the electricity fizzled out, but the clouds of darkness still cloaked them.

After about a further twenty seconds of the parhuman standing still, a few of the PRT creeped forward with their foam sprayers ready. If containment foam failed, then the protectorate had full permission to engage.

The PRT officers were in range now, foam blasters at the ready. As the first column was loosed, the cloud of darkness changed into a bright yellow. As the foam impacted the cloud, a loud sizzling was heard as the foam uselessly sloughed off. 

Fascinating. His head was instantly full of ideas. A more fast acting way to dissolve containment foam could be invaluable, and with three of the ENE Protectorate’s finest, then the parahumans capture was an eventuality. Armsmaster stepped forward, halberd drawn, and next to him he could see Dauntless doing the same with their Arclance. 

A red streak passed his vision, heading towards the parahuman. Velocity should be able to provide a distraction. The red streak slammed into the fog, shifting its shape very slightly. 

The fog changed again to a dark grey, and when Velocity went for the second pass around, Colin watched as he seemed to freeze. 

Colin frowned deeply. The electricity, the yellow fog and the grey fog. The person at the parahumans feet must be Shadow Stalker as console hadn’t managed to reach her, and attacking an unknown parahuman seemed in character for her. 

Clearly, this parahuman was adapting to attacks. It had managed to shut down both Shadow Stalker and Velocity, seemingly without any effort, as well as countering containment foam in seconds. Colin was horribly reminded of Crawler. 

The PRT officers were talking amongst themselves, rather nervously. At this point they would usually be authorized to use rubber bullets, but with a school behind the parahuman that wasn’t an option. 

Colin warily stepped forward and as he did the fog shifted again, this time becoming more material. The form grew in layers, its innermost being a quivering black sphere, and the outer layers being larger and more humanoid, formed out of a segmented white metal. The figure was tall, at least 5 ft 8 inches. 

It stepped forward, its footfalls silent as it walked towards him. Armsmaster steeled himself. With the sheer amount of versatility packed into his halberd, he was sure he could take her.

  
  


* * *

There was no way Armsmaster could take them, Shawn realised. After his first strike the metal was unmarked, but the halberd was smoking. Armsmaster lept back but the parahuman followed, swiping a hand at the hero’s halberd as it did. Armsmaster and the Parahuman were both pulling at the halberd, trying to grab it from each other. 

The parahuman’s arms bulged and it ripped the halberd from Armsmaster’s hands like a toy. The parahumans head seemed to bubble for a second before a circular hole opened around where a mouth would be. A mechanical whirring filled the air as the halberd was slowly fed into the hole.

Armsmaster stood, unmoving, either stunned by shock or by fury. More foam was sprayed at the parahuman’s back, but it seemed just as ineffectual as when the parahuman was the yellow smoke.

The parahuman turned around, away from Armsmaster, not even twitching as his second halberd broke on its back. It continued to walk, even as Armsmaster started punching at it. After the third punch, large spikes shot from the parahuman’s back, and it kept walking.

With dawning horror, Dauntless realized how  _ livid _ Piggot would be.

  
  


* * *

Months later, the media had a name. 

Taylor Hebert, seemingly bullied into triggering.

She was rated as a Breaker 8 (Brute 8/Trump 8/ Changer 8) 

PHO had taken to calling her Tardigrade, especially after her confrontation with Hookwolf had ended with her as a six-legged chitinous monstrosity with spiraling blender mouths.

An adaptive breaker state, on a similar level to Crawler. It was only labeled a breaker state because she had been spotted on the boardwalk in her civilian state.

Danny Hebert had come to the PRT with a thick pile of papers and journals in hand. Shadow Stalker would be spending a lot of time in juvie with electrified cuffs, while Madison Clements was there only with a regular set of cuffs.

Emma Barnes had barely been able to avoid juvie. She had been expelled from Winslow and her family moved to Oregon.

Tardigrade was dull in her breaker state. Practically unconscious. Unthinking. Only focused on survival. This didn’t seem to deter her vigilantism though, as she had even managed to take out a few of the gang’s major players, all in her breaker state. 

Hookwolf had been rusted to scrap by some exotic venom the insectoid form produced, Bakuda had been found missing chunks of flesh on top of the rig, while Skidmark and Squealer had to be resuscitated not once, but twice on their way to prison.

Surprisingly enough though, both of them had managed to flee their prison transport and escape to Mexico. The two new protectorate members in Lincoln Nebraska are unrelated of course, even if Recoil and Lug Nut have similar powers.

The merchants were slowly collapsing in on themselves, their only remaining capes being Mush and the newly triggered Roach.

Her head swam with ideas at the possibilities of Roach’s power. Spider-silk undersuits, instant recon, tracking people. Lisa would definitely need to poach him for her group after the merchants collapsed completely.

Coil’s capture was probably the best thing to ever happen to her, especially after she was contacted by Cauldron. She knew they had been in contact with Tardigrade as well, seeing as they had taken Coil from her. 

Her newly acquired funds had gotten Grue his sister, Alec some new identification papers, and Rachel a nice secluded facility for her dogs.

Did she really owe them that? Some might say she didn’t, but she  _ knew _ the other Undersiders. Lisa went over her plans in her head. While turning the Bay into her own kingdom wasn’t any initial plan of her own, Cauldron had insisted that the warlord experiment went on.

Her plans would have to wait though, as it seemed Leviathan was incoming. Oh well, after an endbringer attack  _ would  _ be the optimal time to sweep up her rivals. There was more to be excited about then that though, because it was rumored that Tardigrade had already agreed to attend the next endbringer attack.

She could hardly wait.

**Author's Note:**

> sorry, this is garbage. read damocles instead.


End file.
